Solemnity of Pentecost

The first reading is Luke’s narrative of the Christian Pentecost event in his Acts of Apostles. In last Sunday’s first reading for the Solemnity of the Ascension of Jesus, the apostles were told by Jesus that they “will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and will b...Read full story »

Thursday, May 17, 2018

Ascension of the Lord

When searching for the meaning of the ascension, we are faced with a problem. What happen-ed? When did it happen? How did it happen? At the original ending of the Gospel of Mark, our oldest gospel, there is no ascension of Jesus, only a promise of a post-resurrection appearance. The gospel which th...Read full story »

Thursday, May 10, 2018

Sixth Sunday of Easter

The first reading is a watershed moment in Luke’s Acts of Apostles – the conversion of Gentiles to the Christian faith. The background: Cornelius was a Roman military officer at Caesarea on the Mediterranean seacoast. He was a devout man, generous to the poor, and prayed constantl...Read full story »

Thursday, May 03, 2018

Fifth Sunday of Easter

The context of the first reading is the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. Eventually, he would become St. Paul, but that would take the next thirty years. He had been a violent persecutor of the Christian movement in Jerusalem. He had witnessed and was involved in the lynching of Stephen, one of the fi...Read full story »

Thursday, April 26, 2018

Fourth Sunday of Easter

The first reading continues the Lectionary’s post-Easter series of selections from Acts of Apostles. The high priestly families, responsible for the arrest and execution of Jesus are on the move against The Way – a name used of and by early Christians for their own mission still within...Read full story »

Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Third Sunday of Easter

The post-Easter series of readings from Acts of Apostles continues. On Easter Sunday the Lectionary presented us with a sermon (speech, homily) which Luke attributed to Simon Peter. The context was the conversion of the first Gentiles (non-Jews) to the Christian faith. Today the Lectionary offers u...Read full story »

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

Second Sunday of Easter

The first reading for this Sunday is another excerpt from Acts of Apostles. Luke composed a glowing report of the earliest Christian Community in Jerusalem. “All believers were of one heart and mind, no one claimed anything as his or her own, but had everything in common.” A kind of Chr...Read full story »

Wednesday, April 04, 2018

EASTER SUNDAY: SOLEMNITY OF THE RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD

Acts 10:34a 37-43; Ps 118:1-2, 16-17, 22-23; 1 Corinthians 5:6b-8; JOHN 20:1-9 Easter is the central liturgical feast of the Year of Grace. Every Sunday is a celebration of Easter. But the name “Easter” seems meaningless to designate this major solemnity of the year. What does thi...Read full story »

Thursday, March 29, 2018

Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion

This Sunday’s first reading is the third of four poems (Psalms, songs) inserted by editors in the oracles of an unknown prophet we call Second Isaiah. The four poems are known as “The Servant Songs.” This prophet’s oracles form the second part of the Book of Isaiah, chapters...Read full story »

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Fifth Sunday of Lent

The context of this Sunday’s first reading is the ministry of the Prophet Jeremiah in Jerusalem sometime between the city’s first fall to the Babylonians in 597 B.C., and the final destruction of the city by the Babylonian army in 587 B.C. This excerpt from the oracles of Jeremiah is kn...Read full story »